


Until Dawn

by analineblue



Category: No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2011-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 14:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/analineblue/pseuds/analineblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nezumi watches Shion in the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fencer_x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer_x/gifts).



> My first foray into No. 6 fic. Written for fencer_x who introduced this series to me, and who dutifully encouraged me to write something for it. (Based on anime canon, since that's all I'd seen when I wrote this.)

The space is drafty, especially after dark, after the sun’s gone down, and the winds have picked up. The chill seeps in from the tunnel and under the door, despite his best efforts to seal the gaps with whatever he can find lying around. 

Nezumi pulls the thin cover around his shoulders a little tighter, up around his chin, and watches Shion in the darkness.

His eyes have long since adjusted; he can even make out the scar under Shion’s left eye – a perfectly white strand of hair traces the mark, and then continues down past Shion’s ear, curling up slightly at the end, just below his earlobe. 

Shion always looks peaceful when he sleeps. His expression is calm, unfettered. Nezumi wonders sometimes how he does it – how he lays aside their differences day after day, as if they’re books to be stacked on a shelf, gathering dust until the time comes to pull them out again.

When Nezumi had first made his move, so many months ago now, he told himself it had been for protection. He’d watched, he’d learned. And when the time had been right, he’d acted. For Shion’s protection. A debt repaid.

He wonders about that now though.

Because sometimes it feels as if maybe Shion is protecting him – as if maybe it’s always been Shion protecting him, dressing his wounds and stitching him up as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. As if this sort of thing happens every day.

Nezumi tells himself he’s repaying a debt, and he _is_ , but sometimes it feels like that debt, that quantity, that volume - it feels like it increases every day.

Nezumi feels it increasing now, in the dark like this, with Shion’s presence, with his form just lying there, blanket tucked up under his chin, oblivious, unwitting. And if Nezumi knows anything, he knows that a debt that just keeps multiplying can’t be considered a _good_ thing. Definitely not a very sensible thing, at any rate.

Sometimes when Nezumi looks at Shion, it’s like he has the city written all over him, as if it’s etched into his consciousness, somehow, the complacency, the acceptance. And other times… Other times Shion speaks and there’s fire in his eyes, and his muscles are tense with _action_ and _purpose_ and Nezumi remembers that night in the rain, and Shion’s scream and he thinks maybe they can do this together after all.

And then he remembers… All those differences, all those volumes stacked away on the shelf – they’re bound to come tumbling down around his feet any day now. He’s sure of it. 

Shion’s fingers close around the blanket, as he shifts on the small couch. Nezumi pulls his knees to his chest and stares at the bookshelf across the room, trying to make out the titles as they stare back at him, but it’s too dark, the only ones he recognizes are the ones he knows by shape – the huge collected works of Shakespeare with its patterned leather spine, a first edition of Milton’s _Paradise Lost_ , the complete Beethoven symphonies. He sighs, and wonders if it’s cold enough for him to see his breath (it’s not, not yet). He shivers anyway.

Opposite him, Shion’s toes are poking out from under his blanket, completely exposed. They’re making Nezumi colder just looking at them. He thinks idly about lighting the stove for warmth, but it would make too much noise, would disturb the quiet calm of the space, and truth be told, Shion may look calm lying there, but Nezumi shudders to think of disturbing that calm.

Sometimes it feels like Shion will always be protecting him. As if that one landscape – an open window, an outstretched hand – has a shadow that stretches on from that moment, through the stars, to infinity.

Protecting him from the person he might have become, if not for this.

And Nezumi can keep Shion out of harm’s way for the most part, can show him which parts of town to steer clear of, which street vendors to buy from, and which to avoid, can rescue him from the prying eyes of the darker corners of the West Block, but Nezumi isn’t sure that compares at all, in the end. It doesn’t even put a dent in this debt of his.

Shion’s breath is slow and even, and Nezumi closes his eyes. He leans his head back against the wall and listens. The slight rasp as the air passes through Shion’s lips, the steady intake of breath, and then the rasp, and the intake, again and again. Then there’s a pause. Nezumi cracks one eye open, and watches Shion turn over in his sleep.

Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to see the world through Shion’s eyes.

**

“Your feet were making me cold,” Nezumi explains defensively, when Shion cracks open a bleary eye, likely confused, understandably, by the fact that Nezumi is sitting on the couch with him, that he’s pulled Shion’s feet up on to his lap, and covered them with the blanket that had been around his shoulders.

“Mmm,” murmurs Shion, clearly still asleep, and Nezumi pulls Shion’s feet to his chest, and wonders what on earth he’s doing.

Repayment of a debt, protection, habit, comfort – the words blend together in Nezumi’s head as he tucks his own feet up onto the couch too, trying not to move too much. He’s pleased when Shion doesn’t even stir as he settles into the back of the couch, shifting just slightly so that his feet, Shion’s feet, and his arms (up to his elbows, at least) are covered with the blanket, shielded slightly from the chill of the room. He rests his head on the back of the couch, and turns a little.

At this angle, he can just make out the curve of Shion’s neck under the covers, can see the line of his jaw, his chin, the soft lashes shuttering Shion’s eyes, can see the tips of Shion’s fingers too, pillowed under his cheek.

He wonders what it would be like to _be_ Shion, or maybe more accurately, what it would be like to be someone, anyone, other than himself. He wonders how different it would be, how many universal truths there really are in this world. Which differences would float up to the top and become important, which would fade into the background, which would change the game forever.

Shion’s feet are warming up. His toes press into the crook of Nezumi’s elbow, and there’s warmth there.

Nezumi welcomes it, and wonders how many hours they have until dawn.

***


End file.
